Before I begin, let me tell you that I am a graduate from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati and I am currently working in a leading Software firm. So most of my preparation was limited to weekends and only a couple of hours on weekdays. Now, here goes my journey to the moment when 760 flashed on my screen at the center.
First a tip, book your GMAT appointment before you start preparing for the GMAT. I know many people before me have given this advice, but I am sure many people still believe that they can start their preparation and book a date when they feel comfortable. Actually, I was one of them. But I realised it pretty soon that unless I have a fixed date in my mind, I would not be able to give my 100% to my preparation.
So, I took my appointment 8 weeks away and started with my preparation. I was never too worried about Quant(thanks to my enginnering background) and thus almost all of my preparation was aimed at the verbal section, particularly sentence correction. For SC, I went through the Manhattan Sentence Correction guide and problems in OG12. For other sections such as Critical Reasoning and Quant, my entire preparation was limited to solving problems from OG12.
I feel official guide and mock tests more or less cover all the areas if one decides to go through each question and its explaination carefully. I personally completed the official guide twice, just to be extra sure that I did not miss any trick. Also, I cut out a 760 on a chart and pasted it on the wall of my room to keep me motivated. Finally after completing the theory form Manhattan Sentence Correction, I chalked out a schedule for all the mock tests that I decided to take before my actual exam.
So here are my mock scores:
1. Veritas Prep Free Mock 720(Q:51 V:37)
2. Manhattan Free Mock 700(Q:51 V:35)
3. Kaplan Free Mock 760
4. GMATPrep Test1 740(Q:49 V:41)
5. Princeton Free Mock 760
6. GMATPrep Test1(2nd attempt) 780(Q:51 V:47)
7. GMATPrep Test2 770(Q:50 V:43)
Actual GMAT 760(Q:50 V:41)
I reached the center an hour early and was asked to start the test rightaway. I had prepared myself for the test center environment by writing all my mocks under similar timed circumstances. I even gave a couple of tests at my friends place just to get the feel of a foreign environment.
AWA and Integrated Reasoning sections went smoothly and I was all geared up for the next sections. Quant started of easy, but then a got a few tricky questions which took some time. I was afraid of losing time and decided to increase my pace. I did about 10 questions in the next 15 minutes or so(including a couple of guesses to save time) and finally had a couple of minutes to spare at the end of the last question. So, in all, the Quant section did not go as smoothly as I had expected. I took the optional break and tried to calm my nerves. Drank water, ate my candy bar and threw some punches in the air before returning back to my seat for the final ordeal. The section started and after about 3-4 questions, my mind started drifting from questions on the screen to my previous sections and thoughts of "I-could-have-done-it-better" and "What-if-I-score-less-than-700?". I paused for a while and took few deep breaths before returning to questions on the screen. For the next few questions, I went slow, trying to be extra sure before marking any answer. This is where I lost most of my time and before I knew I had around 18 minutes left to answer some 16 odd questions. I was shocked for a second for I did not even realise that I had fallen way behind in pacing up my section. I jumped into damage control mode and started answering questions as quickly as I could. I had about 30 seconds for my last question and so I took an educated guess, eliminating a couple of options.
When faced with the option of whether to report scores or cancel them, I thought for a second, but then decided to report them as cancelling would not have done any good to my self confidence. After a couple of seconds, which seemed like eternity, a 760 flashed on the screen. After a deep breath and a sigh of relief, I came out of the center with a smile on my face. Through a quirk of fate, I achieved exactly what I had my eyes set upon from the very beginning.
What I learnt from this experience is that the most important factor in beating the GMAT is keeping your composure on the day of the test. Rest is just a bunch of questions, and trust me after all those mocks and hours of evaluation of mistakes, questions won't scare you.
Best of luck to all those who are yet to take the exam!
